Looks like a great trip ... I was half way tempted to roll my bike on to Aram's truck the afternoon I helped load his 800. After seeing the pics so far, I am kicking myslef for not ditching out on the committments I had during your trip.

Will be out that way in July hoping not to cook my brain inside my helmet.

Nicely done - Cheers!

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july should be ok too, and geomoto knows the place very well that you'll all have a good time.

don't be too hard on yourself (yet)....wait until you see the end of the RR.....

paul and i got separated from the rest of the group. i've been on this route before, but this time i relied on my garmin montana, thent at the critical turn, the screen turned white....:huh

i picked the wrong trail and off we went south that is back to mesquite....

we took a 40 mile detour to get back on track. it was a fun experience but everyone got worried. sorry.

riding towards bar10

when we reached bar 10, we immediately ate our pre-paid lunch at 5 pm, then got more gas to find out that i used up 4 gals.

on the way to toroweap, rich and i stopped at the school house briefly

we all made it to toroweap without any issue. ranger todd stopped us on the way in and started asking questions. showed him the camping permit and he let us through. with a parting message that he will go out there that evening and check on us....hahaha.

i was so tired and didn't take anymore pics. went to bed while the PPs explore the area and chat a little more that night. i missed the beautiful evening sky.

So, Bar Ten Ranch is on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and is the only facility of any type within probably 60-70 miles from anything. It's 80 miles from Mesquite/St. George to the NW, and about 100 miles from Fredonia AZ. Access is way off the beaten path on dirt roads.

I don't know a lot about the facility, but from the looks of it they cater to the more well to do tourists that want a 'dude ranch' experience by flying out from Las Vegas to tour the Grand Canyon. The Lodge is beautiful, well equipped, with huge bathrooms and showers, a large kitchen, pool table upstairs on the balcony, a nice sitting area with fireplace, and seating for at least 30 people on benches with tables for dining.

They have their own airstrip which you can see down below the main grounds, closer to the canyon overlook. There are at least a couple of modern transport buses like you see at regular airports that shuttle travelers to area hotels. Theirs don't even have license plates on them because they never leave the property.

There is a fleet of 4x4 ATV's, and a small herd of horses all saddled up for visitors to explore the view access points on the canyon.

It's a well run family operation, they greet you when you arrive, show you where the amenities are, and invite you in for lunch. There's even a group of covered wagons they rent out for sleep-over visitors.

Joel arranged for lunch for us. The group rate for a sandwich and chips, and use of the grounds, was $22 instead of $27. Ouch. Everyone was glad to pony up as there is nothing else around. And they were willing to top up our fuel tanks with regular fuel only, $7 a gallon. Again, with no other options it was a no-brainer. The lunch spread was generous, a plethora of sandwich makin's, side dishes, even ice cold lemonade and cookies. Very nice experience.

Here's the lodge on the inside:

The covered wagons 'rooms' for rent:

Here are the front grounds where you pull up. You can see one of their airfield transporters here. While we were there at least three bus-loads of visitors showed up. Initially I thought they had driven the same way we came. Then it dawned on us that they were flying in and bussing up from the airfield. At one point we caught a glimpse of one of the aircraft taking off from the strip. The strip is about a thousand feet below the grounds and about a half mile away, so everything wasn't readily apparent at first glance. The place was really quiet and nice 'till all those people showed up.
But soon they went on a horse back ride and dispersed otherwise, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Of course we had quite an extended stay and they kept asking us if there was anything else they could do for us while we waited. At one point we layed out on the lawn, soak up some sun, and relaxed a bit.

We were so thankful when the rest of our group showed up as we had waited almost four hours for them. Without a way to communicate you tend to 'horriblize' the situation and begin to worry that something really bad has happened. Riddler's brilliant idea was to use their satelite phone to call Spafxer since he was tracking the SPOT locators the group was carrying. Once we learned they had been stopped in Elbow Canyon for 3 hours but were now moving we were relieved.

We were talking about getting going, go back to the Trumbull Schoolhouse and wait for them, and finally we could see their dust trails down on the entrance road. They were on their way in.

Now just Joel and Paul were missing. Hmmm...what to do. No one knew what happened to them. Someone thought they had gone into St. George to try to get a part for Joels fork bleeder. If that was the case I would have expected them to show up directly at Toroweap campground. So I convinced the lead group to make our way out there. At least we needed to secure our campsites as only the group site had been reserved, and they would only allow half the group to camp in it. The rest had to get individual sites. The ranger was REALLY picky about how many people and how you parked and all that last year. Seems he was a real putz. Give a little guy a little authority and they go all power-monger on you.

So once we got to the Trumbull Schoolhouse there was Joel and Paul. Thank God!! Joel was now out of fuel so they HAD to get to Bar-Ten for fuel. We said we would keep going and get to Toroweap and secure the camping situation. It was now starting to get later in the afternoon. We had planned to have lunch at noon and be heading for camp an hour or two ago.

The ride to camp was beautiful. The road goes back over Mt. Trumbull, nice forested area. Again, Riddler was running point and I was on his tail. At one point he stopped to regroup and said he had seen a deer and to keep your eyes peeled. The entire area is known for deer crossing the roads, and they'll knock you right off your bike if you hit one.

The four in our lead group made it to Toroweap and there was ranger-dick, waiting in the middle of the road, hands up, wanted to see what these evil bikers were up to. We stopped and shut down, had a friendly conversation. Initially it was just Jon and I and he said, "just you two?" I said yeah, and then two more rolled up. So he then says, "Just you guys?" We said yep. So he said a campfire is not recommended due to the strong winds that were now dying down. And we should take one campsite (WTF?) to conserve space. So on we rolled, it's quite a distance from the ranger station to the campground, with a few sand pits, all in all a fun trek.

I'll save the Toroweap campground report for the rest, then follow up. Here's a couple'a teaser pix. We got settled into the last two empty sites and they were right next to the group site Joel had reserved. Smart move, considering the ranger and his generous attitude. The rest of the group showed up just before dusk.

DAY 1 (Part II)<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>Upon our arrival at Bar 10 we were given a warm welcome by the staff members and were invited in to have lunch. We were reluctant to do so without the rest of our crew, but knew we must stick to the scheduled plan and get to Toroweap&#8212;being a holiday weekend-before all campsites would be taken. We heard the stories of Ranger Todd and how strict he was with 2 vehicles per site&#8230;so we felt an urgency to get there early so all 10 of us could be accomodated.

<o></o>After eating lunch we looked into the distance waiting for that trail dust to head toward us. 3pm still no sign. Then Riddler came up with a brilliant idea! We didn&#8217;t have any cell reception at Bar 10 but knew they would be leaving tracks with the many Spot devices in the group. So Jon thought to call Jim SPAFIXER(back at home) via Satellite Phone to check the groups status. Jim notified us that no emergency signals were sent out and that they were all moving in the right direction. Thanks Jim!! At this point we had a sense of relief and felt comfortable to proceed knowing that we would intercept the group on their way into Bar 10.

<o></o>So we filled up our water bladders and fuel tanks when suddenly four members(Ersin, Rich, Aram & Tim) of our group began to show up. They agreed we should get going to Toroweap while they went inside to fill their hungry bellies and kick it a little! So off the 4 of us went!<o></o>We backtracked the road for our final destination of Day 1 Toroweap. On the way back, we intercepted Joel and Paul at the Old Schoolhouse where they gave us the download. They headed toward Bar 10 to refuel and eat and we headed north to talk to Ranger Dangle. We were a little apprehensive in regards to meeting him not knowing if he would harass us or not! He actually turned out to be very friendly and prmitted us to stay 4 vehicles to a site. We rode in grabbed 2 sites next to the group site Joel had reserved. Everything fell in to place perfectly! Just before sunset the rest of the group began to show up. They sent up their tents and got comfortable! We feared windy conditions like the group had on last years trip but we couldn&#8217;t have asked for better weather. Absolutely spectacular!! Not cold, windless and tons of stars! A few of us went for a night walk while some of the others crashed early. Chris and Rich had a nice fire going by the time we came back from Tim&#8217;s lead night hike.<o></o>Next morning we woke up early to take in the sights and head toward Fredonia.

We had dinner reservations and it was $30 per head for a full cowboy dinner. We aslo got to watch 2 L.A. college chicks "showing off" yoga poses at no extra cost
it is a very nice oasis in the middle of not much

Here's 'my' campsite, M1 pitched his tent in a flat spot here too. The group camp had several tent sites, and the third one did too. The two tents under the huge rock were completely shielded from rain....if it had rained. Fantastic weather here and the most scenic campground I have ever been to. And I'm not kidding.

The next morning was glorious and I convinced a few hardy riders to hike out to the rim as I had seen the pix Joel and crew took last year, and I didn't want to miss it since we'd come all this way and braved all that trail.

They are so fussy about keeping the terrain unmolested that they have a trail out to the rim marked off with rocks and rock cairnes. It was still cool so we didn't get overheated for our short jaunt to the rim. A few obligatory pix of the canyon from Toroweap:

The Colorado River is some three thousand feet below the canyon rim. Getting to the edge gives me the willies.